[Tonatiuh]

Hey all, I'm wondering about this new character I'm building. I have 550 build points to spend, and I'm wondering how to balance it between attributes, skills, and moolah. The skills I need are Longarms 5, Pilot Groundcraft 5, Pilot Dog Sled (yeah) 4, Outdoors Group 4, and Intimidation 4. He's also gotta be pretty well-rounded attribute-wise (oh yeah, double hyphens!), and, since he's got a college education, he needs to have Academic and Professional Knowledge in Business and Cyber Security. He has experience as an Alaskan State Trooper, and knows English and French. And here's the kicker. He's loaded. I'm aware that 550 bp is a lot, but is it enough to make this guy? I mean, he's gotta be one tough mother. I'm also aware that, despite all his intended hard-assery, he's gotta have a downfall. For one, he's terrified of death. How do I put that in-game without making him terrified of combat? Maybe hand-to-hand or close combat paralysis, or something along those lines? He's still gotta be able to shoot a guy from the seat of a motorcycle. Also, what if he's a complete ass hole and people don't like him, or if he's got some notoriety? Any more suggestions as to a weakness my character should have?

One edit (aside from removing the annoying shadow): He's gotta have full body armor and a helmet. Maybe that could be a way to cover his low body?

[UmaroVI]

You should be fine. 150 bp is plenty to cover blowing points on comedy skills like Pilot Dog Sled, and you want money anyways.

I'm not sure that "doesn't like dying" is really a negative quality. I mean, most people don't want to die. Being foolhardy is a negative quality... I'd just roleplay him as cowardly. I guess you could take a Compulsion that's equivalent to the Rat totem? Or maybe Compulsion that if he's attacked, he has to make a Composure test or full defense?

Being an asshole is Incompetence (Etiquette), or maybe Compulsion: Act Like An Asshole. Incompetence is probably better since that also gets you +1 Notoriety to start.

[rasmusnicolaj]

You need body to wear armor.
Either armor rating over Body x2 gives you penalties. And Body is a really nice attribute for staying alive, so get it at 3 or more. 550 BP should give room for that.

Regards
Rasmus

[Joush]

Just a suggestion, but cowardly jerk is kind of a bad mix of traits. it's going to be hard for anyone to care about if your character lives or dies if you go that rout. In any case, you could give him a phobia of potently lethal situations. He's fine killing someone else, but when he's getting shot at, attacked in close combat or has to take a considerable risk (like charge an armed man, try to disarm a bomb, or talk back to someone with a gun on him..) phobia time.

[Tonatiuh]

Cool, I like it Joush! Thanks!

[Katrex]

 made a 360 point biker/gunslinger for my game. With 200 more points what you could so is insane.

 I have 550 build points to spend,

 Longarms 5, Pilot Groundcraft 5, Pilot Dog Sled (yeah) 4, Outdoors Group 4, and Intimidation 4.

 He's also gotta be pretty well-rounded attribute-wise
Ok so no stats at max, that's fine saves us BP.
ORC 20
So stats. Bod 5 Rea 5 Agi 5 str 3, Log 4 Intu 5 Cha 3 Will 3  That's 200
Magic 5,  40, Edge 5
Thats 300 so far
Outdoors 4 (340)
Longarms 5 (360)
Pilot groundcraft 5 (376)
Infiltrate 4 (392)
Con 4  (408) if hes that scared of death of course he's going to know how to lie.
Dodge 4 (424)
perception 4 (440)
I'll leave 60 points free for misc skills cybercombat, electronics whatever you feel is apropirate.
I'm going to assume 35 points of negative qualities. Sensitive system with this build plus another 20.
Adept + way of the adept , And another 20 points in qualities, have fun with that.

50 points in gear Have fun with that also. DOnt forget most nanites have no essence cost.

 he needs to have Academic and Professional Knowledge in Business and Cyber Security.
You have 27 ranks of free skils, easily enough.

He has experience as an Alaskan State Trooper, and knows English and French You could give him the bilingual quality.

And here's the kicker. He's loaded.
Not too hard, give him high lifestyle, gives him 7000 nuyen start money and costs 10000 per month.

he's terrified of death. How do I put that in-game without making him terrified of combat?

So we have multiple ways of dealing with this. The two easiest options are stealth and agresion. Or both. So you can basicaly give everything he has chamelon coating, give him good infiltrate and use that to get the jump on people. The second option is get him realy high initiative and passes. The way you play it is he's scared of death so he tries to kill the fucker before he even gets a chance to draw his gun. Obviously he'll wear lots of armor too just incase. And yes idealy he does all of it. Lots of armor, high initiative, lots of attacks, and lots of stealth.

One edit (aside from removing the annoying shadow): He's gotta have full body armor and a helmet. Maybe that could be a way to cover his low body?

As for armor i would get form fitting body and load it up with pps stuff, which pumps it up to 8/8 that onlky counts as 4/4, and then give him some 6/6 armor on top of that. That only requires 5 body and gives him 14 armor.

So yes spend that 50 bp on gear and you'll be fine. The other obvious method which is stronger earlier game is to go the cyber/bioware route though good luck getting those 4 initiative passes with them costing 240k or haha 5 essence that said if you can spend  100 bp+ on gear go for it, you might want to get type O quality though.
The nice thing about the adept is you can atune to your gun or your motorbike which is damn cool imo.

[Phylos Fett]

The PPS stuff doesn't get halved like FFBA, btw. From what you've said, it seems like you think that it does.

[Katrex]

You attach it to the form fitting. which modifies the form fitings rating. Then the form fittings rating gets halved when aplied to another peice of armor. Perfectly logical and within the rules. It's not a stretch at all. That's how we play it anyway.

[UmaroVI]

If your GM will let that fly, have at it, but I doubt many will.

[Katrex]

Tbh theres not much in it its like a net gain of one balistic armor and 3 impact armor. Over just adding the pps to the primary armor.

[Tonatiuh]

Katrex, I'm totally ganking your idea. That solves everything. Thanks bro. You get some major kudos.

[UmaroVI]

Why do it halfway?

FFBA is 6/2, get it Softweaved.
PPP without one of the +0/+1 pieces is +2/+5
Now throw on a Moonsilver Line Scarf with Delta Amyloid for +4/+1
Now throw on a helmet for +1/+2
now put gel packs in all of that. You have plenty of room for 10 gel packs, 23/20 armor with no encumbrance, whee.

(Note: most GM's will douse you in boiling oil, light you on fire, or make you read WAR! cover to cover if you show up with this).

[Tsuzua]

Tbh theres not much in it its like a net gain of one balistic armor and 3 impact armor. Over just adding the pps to the primary armor.

It's worse than that.  There's a lot of little widgets that increase armor value directly and you can add gel packs till the cows come home. 

If you don't have everything add to FFBA, then your armor score is basically body * 2 + 3 / body * 2 + 1 ballistic / impact and you softweave one side or the other for + STR score armor.

With the FFBA halves everything reading, then your final armor is body * 4 / body * 4 with softweave giving one side or the other +STR*2 score armor.  Unless you have like a 1 or 2 body, it can be a huge difference.

A body 4 runner can now get 16/16 where before he had 11/9 armor.  It does make armor more pricey but not enough for starting runners to care.  Gel pack abuse does mean any hit will knock you down, but knockdown isn't that bad.

[Katrex]

but any dm worth his salt will not allow gel pack abuse. And gellpacks on formfitting makes no sense. Alowing you to stick pps on form fitting does not make that much of a diference. It lets you have10/10 on a 2 body charecter instead of 9/6, Woo. And on a heavy armor charecter is an extra 3 or so armor really going to make a difference when he rolls 30 dice on damage resistance? Honestly not something worth quiblingg over imo. If gm alows he alows if he doesnt he doesnt who cares. I like it more for the fact that it makes my balistic and impact armor the same so i only need to deal with one number more than anything else.

[Phylos Fett]

Not much point arguing with that kind of logic.